By choosing to post the reply below you agree to the rules you agreed to when joining Sailnet.
Click Here to view those rules.

Message:

Trackback:

Send Trackbacks to (Separate multiple URLs with spaces) :

Post Icons

You may choose an icon for your message from the following list:

No icon

Register Now

In order to be able to post messages on the SailNet Community forums, you must first register. Please enter your desired user name, your email address and other required details in the form below.Please note: After entering 3 characters a list of Usernames already in use will appear and the list will disappear once a valid Username is entered.

User Name:

Password

Please enter a password for your user account. Note that passwords are case-sensitive.

Password:

Confirm Password:

Email Address

Please enter a valid email address for yourself.

Email Address:

Log-in

User Name

Remember Me?

Password

Human Verification

In order to verify that you are a human and not a spam bot, please enter the answer into the following box below based on the instructions contained in the graphic.

Click here to view the posting rules you are bound to when clicking the'Submit Reply' button below

Additional Options

Miscellaneous Options

Automatically parse links in text

Automatically embed media (requires automatic parsing of links in text to be on).

Automatically retrieve titles from external links

Click here to view the posting rules you are bound to when clicking the'Submit Reply' button below

Topic Review (Newest First)

09-02-2014 07:16 PM

Brent Swain

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

This was one of the best posts, posted on the origamiboats site, a while back.

Regardless of what material Bob likes or dislikes. We need to dig
deeper into our emotional reasons why we do what we do. The arguments
for and against steel have been settled have been done over a million
times. Advocates of each think they have the battle won. Now back to
the emotion....

Simply put most dreamers and can do types simply dont have the money
to engage a NA to design or even purchase a hull advocated by Bob
fullstop. I cant even recall when i last saw one of these hitech
hulls in Reunion, Capetown, Chrismas Islands, or wherever your
favourite remote cruising ground is. Yet i see plenty boats with
people who only have the basic means to deliver their dreams. I
always marvel that they have been on the water for years and some are
on third and fourth circumnavigations. Hey whats all that noise, its
six in the morning, head out of the hatch, JeeeeeSUS what the hell
its a hitech aircraft carrier French hull with maybe 12 crew. MMMMMM
formalities out of they way, Oh you only staying one day "we in a
hurry because the owner has to be back in France to run his dot com
business and is only on this one leg". This is the typical routine
for these high pressure types with their hitech boats, and surely
this is not the lifestyle or cruising style that most who build boats
or scrape and save dream about. To most the boat is an means to an
end, and so long as it meets the basic survival criteria it will do.
By enlarge metal boats feature heavy in this thinking. Just like the
vast majority drive everyday automobiles, only a minority of archair
warriors dream about Porsches knowing full well they will never use
it to its full capability or can hardly afford it, and is beyond the
role of basic transportation. If you are one of these dreamers you
will never get away, because your funds will be totally exhausted,
with cost overruns, and technical developements on the fly taking
this hitech approach. When the hull cracks are you going to fly the
builder and his crew out to Del Fuego to advise whether you should
continue in your boat or charter the Antinov to fly your hull home
for repairs? With due respect to Bob, you only have to be in Aukland
one or twice to see the reality of this situation, the quotes of $30K
seem to be reasonable for insurance damage on some minor mooring
incidents. The owners dont care, they fly home while the hull dries
out. Something the designers of these laminates have not addressed
regardless of kevlar or dyneema. This kind of disaster would destroy
most peoples cruising plans, so steel under these circumstance makes
logical sense. Its wrong of coarse for Bob, this is just part of the
game of hitech, you gotta have pain for gain Bob?? Even if it is
wrong on the Silicon Graphics workstation and finite element analysis
version 23, steel users dont give a damm, something some people
refuse to acknowledge.

What i largely see is a low tech fleet of slow(relatively) heavy
plastic, steel and ferro. Simply most cant afford the "ideal" boat,
and even if they could afford it could not spare the time for long
term cruising. I see time and time again the Techno Wizard boats on
the milk run from San Diego finnishing in Aukland, and low and behold
they fly home and get the crew to deliver the boat home. Not what
most long term cruisers are thinking about, the horizon will always
be there for them. Another fact is simply that the vast majority of
yachts go nowhere, the more hitech the boat is the faster you will
sail and probably you more likely to go nowhere. Very few of these
boats are really thought out well, LET ALONE BE DESIGNED BY
SOMEONE WHO HAS ACTUALLY CRUISED. This assumes most who build metal boats
want to cruise. Most others will be stuck in the marina with the
owners on the bar stool, saying see my miracle 99 overthere its built
out of fritanium fudge and its the best thing since sliced bread, i
bought it for cruising but my wife hates boats and prefers her
friends at the country club or the Newport Yacht club. It seems only
the affluent have the money to buy these boats, so presumably they
wont have the time to cruise.
It seems the vast majority of the hitech fleet fall into this
category and simply have a arrogant diposition and laugh at people
who happily cruise for years on 32 foot boats or anything that did
not cost a million. Considering that a hitech trailer sailor will
cost more than most steel boats, one wonders how logical it can be
that small hitech uncapable boat costs more than the average steel do
anything cruiser.

My personal view is that those hitech junkies they have long lost
the will to dream or be captured by romantic ideals. Unfortunately
carbon fibre and fudgy cores dont figure in this the romantic lines
of many cruisers dreams. I think most people who have practical
common sense will look at steel or old heavy plastic, those that cant
afford the classic plastic opt for building and most times its steel.
Its totally wrong to call these people fools and shoot them down with
unproven techno babble. Because simply at the end of the day
anecdotal evidence is in their favour. Its amazing occurence if some
el cheapo Beneteau which a kid can stick a screwdrive through does a
circumnavigation, yet the numerous steel hulls from 26 and up rarely
get a mention. It always amuses me that in the usa where most boats
are plastic and the huge media bias against anything economical and
under 40 feet i see sometimes more small cruisers and steel cruisers
in most ports. Someone is certainly missing the boat. The bias
towards production plastic boats and 44 foot plus is clearly
evident. Yet outside this unreality the evidence is exactly
opposite. So one really has to wonderS who is fooling who. I am
sorry to say Bob your reasoning is not part of common cruising
folklore and dreams, you need to work on some romantic cruising story
books featuring hitech, or start the Asmovian boat group where
members can determine if its shorter too Tahiti through a black
carbon fibre hole or whether the dynamics of H2O surface tension will
get your there without fixing or finding wormholes in the laminate.

SO what i am saying is that its nice being modern and technically
aware, but the boat hull is only about 1% of the total pie, and to
simply focus on the material when 99 other elements have to be
considered is wrong. If building in steel saves you money, time and
does the job who really cares about those other things. Just like
most of us in our daily lives know the space program is good for us
long term, we dont contemplate that the space shuttle tiles will be
on our keel in the future. We roof our houses in clay and use lead in
our keels. The sad fact is that regardless of how good these
materials are, there are only probably less than 5 builders in the
world who can do the kind of boats the Bob advocates.

Since this group is about people interested in building these kind
of simple egalitarian boats, i thought i would focus on these ideals,
and strengths of the philosophy of the designers and the people who
dare to dream and dont play the consumer orientated childish snobbery
games of life.The final comments is that there more web pages on
steel boats and cruising than hitech laminates and hitech boats, that
should tell you something.

Will

09-02-2014 06:37 PM

Brent Swain

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

The Pardeys told me that after every major passage they have three weeks of hard work to get their boat back in shape. Mine takes a couple of hours. Seems that they spend a lot more time than me, working like a slave on their boat in exotic locations. Been there done that, on my first boat. While I was sanding and varnishing, those on more practical boats were fishing golfing , etc. I woke up,some never do. Next boat was far more practical.
The more cruising most people do, the more they are attracted to work boat priorities. Some, a small percentage, stick to their masochistic pleasures of working their asses off to impress the amateurs,and become a slave to their naive priorities.
Check out Bob Griffith's book "Blue Water" Check out the photos for its "Yachtieness"
Then do the same with Moitesiers books "The Long Way" and "Cape Horn the Logical Route. Then read the text, and compare his complete lack of problems, compared to the cruises of the far more "Yachtie."

09-01-2014 12:00 PM

Steve in Idaho

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurphny
The original question of whether you need to be "rich" to sail can be answered in one word-YES. When considering the conditions of the majority of the people on the planet, we should all thank our lucky stars that we can even discuss such things. By mere fate, we happened to be born here and now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nancyleeny

This. While most of us don't probably consider ourselves "rich," I need to remind myself that much of the world doesn't even have clean running water, so I am, in fact, rich beyond measure.

Very true. We are blessed.

OTOH...people have been sailing long before indoor plumbing, and are in fact, sailing even now in what most of us here would consider "poverty" (out of necessity, in some cases).

After all - it just takes some wind, some water, some sticks, and something to catch the wind.

The fact of the matter is that for the vast majority of us with internet access, it's just a matter of priorities.

09-01-2014 04:41 AM

Omatako

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by bblument

Indeed. If anyone DOES have some personal experience or specialized knowledge on how to deal with those two tragic scenarios, I am ALL ears and eyes... type away.. please!

As it happens, I have had a severed finger. My wife put my finger back together on the boat and it took two days to get me to a hospital where the surgeons fixed if properly. It now works about 95%. But had it not been for the ground work done on the boat I would have only nine today.

I am unfortunately very careless with my extremities (no not that one, dirty bugger!!) and almost severed my right hand at the wrist, crushed a finger, broken fingers and limbs and serious lacerations but have luckily escaped the compound fracture. I have no doubt though that my wife will fix it well enough to get me to a doctor.

We also keep a useful stock of morphine in the 1st aid box without which these events are a lot more debilitating.

Sorry for thread hijack.

08-31-2014 01:04 PM

newhaul

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by bblument

Indeed. If anyone DOES have some personal experience or specialized knowledge on how to deal with those two tragic scenarios, I am ALL ears and eyes... type away.. please!

This. While most of us don't probably consider ourselves "rich," I need to remind myself that much of the world doesn't even have clean running water, so I am, in fact, rich beyond measure.

My brother is an engineer who volunteers for a humanitarian organization that drills water wells in Africa and builds fiberglass storage tanks to go with them. I sent him this cartoon to take with him.

08-31-2014 09:53 AM

bblument

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omatako

If you are planning on learning something of value, try learning how to ....... refit a severed finger or set a compound fracture - they are more likely to cripple your boat than a calamitous gear failure. And they're far more scary.

Indeed. If anyone DOES have some personal experience or specialized knowledge on how to deal with those two tragic scenarios, I am ALL ears and eyes... type away.. please!

Barry

08-31-2014 07:36 AM

Nancyleeny

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by smurphny

The original question of whether you need to be "rich" to sail can be answered in one word-YES. When considering the conditions of the majority of the people on the planet, we should all thank our lucky stars that we can even discuss such things. By mere fate, we happened to be born here and now.

This. While most of us don't probably consider ourselves "rich," I need to remind myself that much of the world doesn't even have clean running water, so I am, in fact, rich beyond measure.

08-31-2014 06:56 AM

smurphny

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

The original question of whether you need to be "rich" to sail can be answered in one word-YES. When considering the conditions of the majority of the people on the planet, we should all thank our lucky stars that we can even discuss such things. By mere fate, we happened to be born here and now.

08-28-2014 08:43 PM

JonEisberg

Re: Don't have to be rich to sail

Quote:

Originally Posted by Brent Swain

That kind of "Cruising" is defined as "working like a slave in exotic locations."

Yeah, well... give them a bit more time to finally see the Wisdom of Your Way...

They've only managed to put 170,000 miles in SUNSTONE's wake thus far, after all...

:-)

This thread has more than 10 replies.
Click here to review the whole thread.